Project consortium

Meet the Partners

Brazil Partners

The Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) is the leading university in the State of Bahia. Its Software Engineering Laboratory – LES (http://les.dcc.ufba.br) has eight researchers with PhD degrees, being one of the largest groups in Brazil. The Computer Science Department has 25 professors and is hiring 14 new ones in the next years. REMESSA is a cooperation project among UFBA and 24 institutions (including Brazilian Research Network – RNP, and the State Secretary of Science and Technology – SECTI). It provides an optical fibre infrastructure network that covers, in a redundant way with high speed, more than 130 km of urban spaces in several locations of Salvador, including the circuit of Carnival and Arena Fonte Nova, the stadium built for the 2014 Soccer Cup. The expansion of REMESSA’ network intends to achieve the cities of Lauro de Freitas and Camaçari, where the Industrial Complex of Camaçari is located.

The University of São Paulo (USP) is the largest university in Latin America, being responsible for about 20% of the Brazilian research. USP will participate in the RESCUER project with the Images and Databases research group (GBdI-USP) from São Carlos, in the state of São Paulo. GBdI-USP has been working on areas related to this proposal, mostly on integrating images from remote sensing devices as well as medical devices. The analysis process on such images depends on robust and fast image processing algorithms as well as machine learning techniques for pattern recognition and analysis. One technique that has been well employed and extended by GBdI is the use of Fractal Theory for image and data analysis. A very fast algorithm for data analysis was proposed by the research group, which has linear cost on the size of the data and allows selecting the most meaningful data features. GBdI, with the Mathematics and Computer Science Institute (ICMC) –USP, has been working with similarity search of complex data (mostly images, time series, and audio) employing content-based retrieval techniques. To do so, features from complex data are gathered and used to index and to retrieve them. As the number of features is commonly too large, we also developed feature selection algorithms based on fractal concepts, association rules, and genetic algorithms in order to keep only the most meaningful features. Indexing is a core issue regarding performance of similarity queries, and GBdI has intensively worked in this area proposing new metric access methods, such as the Slim-tree, Omni-tree, MM-tree, among others, as well as custom distance functions to compare the complex data. Time series are the typical type of data from climate and agro-meteorological outputs. GBdI has proposed new algorithms and methods to discretize and compare such data in order to spot extreme events and climate changes. These algorithms are important to be employed in data mining methods to evaluate the correlation between real measurements gathered from land stations, remote sensed information, and mathematical forecast models. A powerful asset to help in analysing the data behaviour and gathering knowledge from them is visualisation. GBdI has also been working in this subject aiming at supporting the development of access methods, as well as extending data mining solutions.

MTM is a software company founded in 2006 in Brazil, which is specialised in the development of mobile solutions. MTM has developed a strong competence around technologies applied to mobile solutions enabling it to offer a wide range of products and services to their customers and partners. MTM has solutions developed in several fields such as mobile workforce automation, mobile workflow, and mobile health. Its solutions have been recognised as reference cases by leading providers of mobile platforms such as Microsoft, Qualcomm, Research In Motion, Motorola, and Samsung. Furthermore, MTM has also developed a significant R&D background enabling it to receive grants from the Brazilian government to develop innovative solutions. These solutions are currently been licensed by partners around the world who offer MTM’s systems to more than 10.000 end users around the world. MTM belongs to the Solutis Group, which is part of the consortium responsible for building Arena Fonte Nova, the stadium that will host the games of the 2014 Soccer Cup in Salvador, Bahia.

COFIC has been operating since 1978 and is responsible for security and safety in the largest integrated industrial complex south of the equator, the Industrial Complex of Camaçari (ICC). To this end, it has a sophisticated structure for managing emergencies and crisis. It is a private association comprising 90 companies installed in the ICC and in its areas of influence, including the following sectors: chemical, petrochemical, cooper metallurgy, industrial maintenance, brewery, textile industrial, cellulose, automobiles, fertilizers, eolian energy, and services. COFIC works on articulating, facilitating, coordinating and encouraging collective actions, in order to achieve the common interests of its associated companies. It also interacts with the surrounding community, in particular the city of Camaçari, to handle emergencies and promote community awareness for handling emergencies. Its mission is to promote the sustainable development of ICC and its area of regional influence. Its vision is of ICC being recognised as a reference in business excellency. Its objective is to develop the sustainable growth of the associated companies; to represent them in the relationship with the government; to promote best practices in Safety, Health and Environment; transparent communication and good image; and people development and social responsibility. COFIC has coordinated programmes to attend the collective interests of its associated companies, such as: Risk Analyses, Mutual Aid Plan – PAM, Emergency Medical Plan – PAME, Contingency Plan – PCP, Community Emergency Plan, Preliminary Risk Assessment Program – APPOLO Project, Risk Management Programs, Camaçari Complex EH&S Award, Complex Operating Permit. COFIC has a Training Centre of Emergency Control, Security Programs, a Community Advisory Council, Community Defence Volunteers, Social Programs (Educational Incentive), Visiting Programs to Community, Partnership with Police, and coordinates the General Crisis Committee in the Camaçari Industrial Complex.

EU Partners

FRAUNHOFER is the largest funding organisation for applied research and technology transfer in Germany. FRAUNHOFER will participate in the RESCUER project with its Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (Fraunhofer IESE) in Kaiserslautern. Fraunhofer IESE is one of the most widely recognised software engineering institutions world-wide and takes a lead in Europe. Its activities focus on 1) advancing the state of the art in software and systems engineering, 2) providing innovative and value-adding solutions with measurable effects to customers, and 3) promoting the importance of empirically based software and systems engineering. In the RESCUER project, Fraunhofer IESE will engage members of the System and Software Architecture, User Experience, Mobile Applications, and Security Engineering teams.

With facilities in Kaiserslautern, Saarbrücken, Bremen, and a project office in Berlin, the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) is one of the leading research centres in the area of innovative software technology for commercial application. DFKI was founded in 1988 as a non-profit organisation by several renowned German IT companies and two research facilities. DFKI projects typically include the entire spectrum from basic research to market- and customer-oriented development of product functions. Currently, DFKI has about 760 employees. The circle of DFKI industrial partners comprises Daimler AG, Deutsche Telekom AG, SAP AG, Software AG, Attensity Europe GmbH, Microsoft Deutschland GmbH, Deutsche Post AG, BMW AG Deutsche Messe AG, EADS Astrium GmbH, Intel Corporation, and Ricoh Ltd. The specific research unit to be involved in the RESCUER project (Embedded Intelligence) was founded in 2011 by Prof Paul Lukowicz. It emerged from his group at the University of Passau, which was an international leader in ubiquitous and wearable sensing, activity recognition, and related applications. It has three focus areas: general Pervasive Computing, Collaborative Cyber Physical Systems, and Socially Interactive Computing. Within Pervasive Computing the focus is on context awareness and its applications. Socially Interactive Computing is driven by the vision of extending the notion of context awareness from a “single user single system” to systems that interact with humans at the community level, effectively combining aspects of pervasive computing and social networking.

VOMATEC is an SME that has been developing specialised software solutions for fire fighters and rescue services, ambulance services, civil defence and crisis management organisations, security services, public assistance organisations as well as security departments of privately held industries for more than 20 years. VOMATEC has more than 1,500 installations at 400 different customers located in Germany, Europe and worldwide including 15% of the professional fire brigades in Germany. One of the German federal states uses VOMATEC’s products as a state-wide information system for civil protection. The main product “ARIGON PLUS” is a modularised, integrated management system that provides the possibility to link up every customer specific subsystem such as alerting systems, audio communication, fire alarm systems, video and facility automation. VOMATEC is a partner in several German and European public safety and security related research projects, in which it has the leadership of work packages, tasks, project phases and/or technical aspects as well as complete projects. These projects focus on disaster management using autonomous sensor networks, ubiquitous sensor systems and heterogeneous information systems for fire fighters, communication and infrastructure support based on heterogeneous networks in crisis scenarios as well as mobile device support in large-scale disaster scenarios. Furthermore, VOMATEC is part of several standardisation bodies such as DIN SPEC 91287 (Data interchange between information systems in civil hazard prevention).

FIRESERV is a consulting company in the field of disaster and crisis management with customers in industry and government agencies, fire departments, emergency services, and law enforcement forces. It develops lasting internal management systems to cope with emergency events of any size. Its comprehensive service offer covers safety in the workplace, fire prevention management, as well as emergency and disaster management. It combines expert knowledge in prevention with economic efficiency and many years of experience in the performance of fire brigade and rescue services. Innovation, economical efficiency and law conformance are key principles. FIRESERV is an SME with a dense network of experts in rescue services and fire brigades, executives and public authorities, as well as managers of health, safety and environment, and of emergency health services in the industry. Our employees and partners combine experience in their acting area with high problem solution competence. FIRESERV is ready to provide its expert knowledge and experience to support RESCUER’s goals.

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) is the oldest and the largest Technical University in Spain. UPM’s schools focus their knowledge on most of the Engineering disciplines, and have a strong commitment to R&D and Innovation. With an approximate total annual budget of €400 Million, UPM receives over €130 million annually from external resources to support research activities. UPM contributes significantly to knowledge creation through its scientific publications and has been involved in the coordination of more than 30 projects. Furthermore, the UPM European Project Office is dedicated to support researchers by managing the European projects of the University. UPM will participate in the RESCUER project with the “Visual Telecommunication Applications Group” (G@TV) of the Telecommunication Engineering School, ETSIT-UPM. G@TV has experience in digital image processing, computer vision, design and implementation of transmission channels, video communication and decision support tools, and is involved in several standardisation activities.